The magnificent Greek holiday Oxi Day is celebrated every year in Greece on October 28th and mostly remembered for General Ioannis Metaxas' strong reply of 'OXI' (no) to Mussolini's request to allow Italian troops to come into Greece at the beginning of WWII. The result of this stern message was powerful, and in the end, helped to maintain Greece's course of neutrality for generations to come. Nevertheless, the Italians did invade Greece, but were subsequently driven back into Albania.
The story begins in 1935, when King George II was restored to the Greek throne by a rigged plebiscite, where he made the right-wing General Ioannis Metaxas Prime Minister. Nine months later, Metaxas assumed dictatorial powers with the King's consent under the pretext of preventing a communist-inspired republican coup. The October 28 national holiday also marks the date in 1940 when Greece entered WWII.
On that cherished day in Greek history, Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas not only rejected Italy's ultimatum, he chose the road of resistance, and thus saved his reputation as a dictator. Cypriot countrymen also drew inspiration from Greece's refusal to let Italian troops invade in 1940 in the face of continued Turkish agression.
In 1940 when most countries of Europe had surrendered, Hitler had the continent of Europe in his grip and the democracies were at the lowest point, Mussolini decided to take over Greece anticipating an easy victory based on his superior numbers and mechanized forces. He attacked Greece from Albania.
The Greeks stood up and said "OXI!!!" (No, you shall not pass) and fought fiercely, hurling back the stunned and bleeding aggressors. Mussolini’s divisions were soon back in Albania and for six months were fighting to maintain a hold on the seacoast, desperately calling for help.
When Germany entered the war against Greece with the most powerful army in Europe, the Greeks continued to fight both of these great empires, although reason must have told them that their position was hopeless. Alongside their British comrades they continued to resist stubbornly on the island of Crete.
Greece had fallen, but it had cost Hitler thousands of his finest youth and delayed his attack against Russia by months. German troops ran into the dreadful Russian winter and the Russians imposed such appalling losses that it contributed to the ultimate defeat of Germany. The occupation, Great Famine, resistance and subsequent liberation of Greece followed, and then came "December Movement" in which Greeks fought brother Greeks.
Greece, with the help of England first and, later, of the United States, remained in the Western Alliance.
Today in Greece, celebrations of Oxi Day culminate in a large, lavish military parade down the main boulevards of Athens and Thessoloniki. Soldiers, tanks, armoured vehicles and students parade through most Greek cities with an air of pride, and politicans in reviewing stands have an opportunity to show their own spirit to Greece and the resistance and how in future generations it should be continued.
German soldiers are raising the flag with the swastika on the Acropolis of Athens, end April 1941. Only a few days later M. Glezos and A. Santas took down the nazi emblem. This constituted a resistance action, which had a symbolic character against the violence of the Axis.
"When the Germans conquered Greece, they had to station half a million soldiers there. Because the war continued. It was guerrilla war fighting from the mountains, attacking their convoys, and resistance (antistasi) stabbing them in the dark of the night in the city street."
Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini led the facist
movement of Italy.
He allied with Nazi Germany and
planned the attack
against Greece in October, 1940.
"The unbelievably strong resistance of the Greeks delayed by
two or more vital months the German attack against Russia.
If we did not have this long delay, the outcome of the war
would be different."
Hitler's Chief of Staff Field Marshall Keitel
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